1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an energy-saving drying apparatus which utilizes solar heat to effectively dry a large amount of matter to be dried, the matter being supplied to a drying room of the apparatus and dried therein through the use of solar heat.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is conventionally known to construct a drying apparatus from a plurality of rooms which are sequentially arranged in a specified order.
An example of such a sequential arrangement is as follows; a matter-receiving room in which are disposed matter-receiving hoppers, roughers, weighing machines and like machines; a drying room in which a plurality of recycling-type drying machines are disposed in parallel with each other; and a weighing/packing room in which a weighing/packing machine is disposed. The matter having been received in a conventional drying apparatus of this type is dried in the drying room through the use of the recycling-type drying machines to have a predetermined water content, and then weighed and packed in the weighing/packing room of the apparatus to be formed into the final product.
However, a conventional drying apparatus as described above employs dry hot air (which is produced by combustion of liquid fuels) as its heat source for drying the matter to be dried. The matter to be dried is exposed to blasts of such dry hot air and dried to have a predetermined water content. Consequently, when a large amount of the matter must be dried by the use of the conventional drying apparatus, a large amount of liquid fuels are required, and, therefore, this conventional drying apparatus is disadvantageous due to the fuel expense.